A SERDES framer interface is the electrical interface between an optical module (i.e., a transponder) and a complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) framer. This SERDES framer interface is currently handled using sixteen 2.5 gigabit per second (i.e., 16×2.5 Gbps) differential data lines together with one 2.5 Gbps deskew channel, as specified in the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) SFI-5 standard. According to the OIF SFI-5 standard, the data samples transmitted over the deskew channel are headed by a 64-bit header. The deskew channel header includes two A1 bytes (F6) and two A2 bytes (62) for framing, as well as four overhead bytes (EH1-4).
Following the transmission of the 64-bit deskew channel header, 64 bit samples from each of the 16 data lines are transmitted over the deskew channel (e.g., 64 bit samples from data line 15 are transmitted, 64 bit samples from data line 14 are transmitted, and so on, until 64 bit samples from data line zero are transmitted over the deskew channel). Disadvantageously, the OIF SFI-5 SERDES framer interface is difficult to implement. For example, the implementation effort, in terms of the required number of logic gates, is significantly high. As such, effective implementation of this approach in a high-speed ASIC technology (such as SiGe, InP, and the like) is expensive due to the associated power consumption of this implementation.